Dawn broke over the open ground between the Blackwater and the city walls, and the place had turned into a different world.
More than a hundred brightly colored tents had popped up like mushrooms after rain. Thousands of smallfolk packed the earthen banks built around the edge, stretching their necks and standing on tiptoes to stare into the tournament field bristling with banners.
Lord Tywin's arrival had caused a stir only among the nobles. The real frenzy sweeping the whole city was the event everyone had waited for and the crown had spent a month preparing: the tourney for the Hand and the Prince.
Joffrey had made sure the Hand's name came first, so everyone just called it the Hand's Tourney.
Inside the arena the packed sand was studded with every house sigil imaginable—golden lions on crimson, gray direwolves on snow, golden roses on green fields. And right in the middle flew the royal standard: a crowned black stag on gold.
The noble stands were already packed. Robert had always bragged about mingling with the people, so there were no private royal boxes; the king sat with his family and the lords and ladies, though the seating still followed strict rank.
Horns blared. Drums thundered.
The king, golden crown on his head, stepped to the front of the stands. He gave a lazy wave and the crowd erupted in a thunderous roar of "Long live the king!"
"I know you're all impatient," Robert bellowed, voice carrying without any help. "Because I'm fucking impatient too. So I'm not wasting time on ceremony. All that pompous shit is canceled!"
He raised one thick arm.
"The tourney begins—now!"
The cheer exploded again, rolling from the noble stands all the way to the distant commoner slopes. Even though most of those people couldn't hear a word the king said, they still screamed "Long live the king!" like their lives depended on it.
In that roaring heat even Eddard Stark's usual tight expression eased a fraction.
The two Lannister lions, however, looked like they had swallowed something sour.
The opening was short, but the formal procession couldn't be skipped. Seven white-cloaked Kingsguard rode in first, milk-white cloaks and scale armor gleaming. Only Jaime Lannister shone in full gold, lion-helm glinting, standing out like a peacock.
Whispers rippled through the stands immediately.
"Is that armor solid gold? Lannisters, you know…"
"Can't be. Has to be gilded. Otherwise it'd weigh a ton."
The chatter quickly slid from solid gold versus gilt to exactly how much gold Casterly Rock still held—and how much of it Lord Tywin had squeezed out of the realm. Nobody said the second part out loud.
The competitors riding in next finally pulled everyone's attention away.
First day was the main event: mounted jousts. Two knights on either side of a tilt barrier, wooden lances couched, charging full tilt. Lance tips were blunted to break easily and keep deaths low. Three passes, points for hits to different parts of the body. Knock your man clean off the horse and you won outright.
Afterward, some sore losers might demand a foot fight, but without real blood-feud it almost never happened.
Three of the fifty northern guards Eddard had brought south entered the lists. Plain clothes, battered armor—they looked like country cousins next to the glittering southern knights. They'd also bragged before the tourney that one Northman could take ten southern dandies.
They were eliminated in the first round.
Joffrey only vaguely remembered one of them. Back in Winterfell the man—Harwin, he thought—had held his horse. The poor bastard drew Meryn fucking Trant in the opening tilt. Even the Hound had once said any random actor with a sword could beat Trant three times out of five.
Harwin didn't last one pass.
Hundreds of knights followed, names washing past like water: some Rohans, some Manderlys, Freys by the dozen. Old Walder Frey himself had shown up at ninety-plus, watery eyes scanning his swarm of sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons for one who might actually bring the family glory.
Every single Frey lost in the first round. Perfect formation.
The real contenders who made it to the later rounds were the usual suspects: the Hound, Renly, red-robed Thoros, and Gregor "the Mountain" Clegane—the exact faces printed on Joffrey's wooden tokens.
Joffrey's gaze drifted to the vendors weaving through the stands, baskets on their arms, shouting the new collectible game between sales of pies and ale. Most of the crowd had never seen anything like it and bought out of pure curiosity. The food itself was solid and cheap, so they kept coming back.
Whenever someone pulled a knight token from their pie, a little knot of people gathered to pass it around, oohing and aahing.
The one that drew the biggest laughs was the most common token: Commander Janos Slynt of the Gold Cloaks. Every man, woman, and child in King's Landing knew that frog-faced mug.
Joffrey didn't give a damn if the real champions felt insulted sharing the "Five Tiger Generals" set with Slynt. He'd already stolen their portraits for the tokens; why start worrying about feelings now?
The jousts ground on until dusk. The food sold out by midday—far better than Joffrey had expected. Most of the credit went to the actual pies and ale, but the three ultra-rare tokens helped: unique portraits of Barristan Selmy, Jaime Lannister, and Loras Tyrell. Pull any one and you won a gold dragon outright.
Nobles might sneer at pocket change, but the smallfolk went feral. One gold dragon could feed an ordinary family for a year.
All told, Joffrey's monopoly on the food stalls brought in roughly thirty thousand coppers—barely four gold dragons. That was one-tenth the cost of the wolf-head sword he'd given Robb. Subtract ingredients, labor, and the prizes still to be paid and the whole thing was running at a loss.
"Exactly as planned," Joffrey muttered, watching the sky darken. A faint smile touched his lips. "Losing money to buy the roar of the crowd."
The moon was already up and the roaring audience was finally showing signs of fatigue when Robert stood and announced the semifinals and final would wait until morning.
Courtiers and the top-performing knights were invited to a feast by the river. The first group because the king commanded it, the second because Joffrey had suggested rewarding the men who had actually put on a show.
Truth be told, Joffrey didn't see many he actually respected. Even "Ser Saliva" was considered decent. Plenty of others hadn't been invited at all but slipped in anyway—like Ser Hugh, the lucky bastard who had survived a tilt against the Mountain.
The night air carried the smell of roasted meat and woodsmoke down to the Blackwater as the feast began.